Sunday, January 29, 2006

I been tagged

Curse you Rabenstrange and your tagging! But since I have nothing better to do at the moment…I guess I can do one little blog survey.

Past real jobs: (Emphasis on REAL)
Walt Disney World: I did tons of random crap and hated most of it.
Print shop: The same one as Rabenstrange, doing pretty much the same stuff. It doesn’t disagree with me the same way Disney World did.
School: I’ve worked for a school for a number of years doing their computer work, and even taught a computer class on a few occasions. (Teaching 2nd graders how to use a computer is much easier than teaching their teacher how to use a computer)
Microsoft: I test games for them, mostly Xbox and Xbox360 games. My job is usually to break them in a controlled test so that you don’t do it at home.

Movies I’ll see over and over again:
Serenity
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Punisher
Gladiator
Are we supposed to stop at 4 items?
Batman Begins
Underworld (I guess now I’ll always have to watch both of them back to back as soon as I get the second one)
Love Actually
Out Cold

Places I’ve lived:
For this definition I define living at a place at residing there long enough to get mail and stuff sent to me.
Seattle, WA: The house I live in at the moment is also the first house I’ve ever lived in.
Seabeck, WA: Technically a second home to me, but I’ve spent more days/nights there than any other place I’ve ever been with the exception of my original house in Seattle.
Lake Buena Vista, FL: My most recent expedition out of Washington brought me here for 5 months. This was purely for work related activities and I have no intention moving back there.
Oradea, Romania: Lived there for a little under 2 months. Liked it, would have no qualms with going back for a few more months.

Currently playing TV shows I watch regularly:
Red Green
Myth Busters
One Piece
Beyond Tomorrow
How It’s Made
Futurama
Simpsons
Ended TV shows I watch regularly:
Almost Live
Babylon 5
Firefly
SeaQuest

Most frequented family vacation spots by me outside of Western Washington:
Vancouver, BC: It’s about an hour from my condo so we’ve been there many times.
Disneyland: I think we’ve been there 5 times. I like it but Disneyworld had much more stuff. Disneyland is a better weekend destination because of this, and is much cheaper.
Lake Tahoe, NV: I think we’ve been there 4 times, but I’m not really sure why. Just hanging out by the lake and hiking in the mountains is about it unless you like slot machines. To date I’ve lost $2 in slot machines in my entire life; I’ve almost broke even but they’re addicting so I’ve never played one higher than a nickel.
Hattiesburg, MS: Got tons of family there, been there 3 times I believe. I’d have no problems living there, except that there are 2 computer stores within 50km and that’s a little low for my taste.
Disneyworld: Family’s been there 3 times, I like it better than Disneyland but it’s proportionally more expensive and far away so we don’t go very often.

My most frequented websites:
Overclockers.com
Pimprig.com
theInquirer.net
Orbusmax.com
fark.com
Slashdot.com
Sluggy.com
Xbitlabs.com

Food I love:
Teriyaki Chicken (real stuff not that fake crap they try to pass off east of the Mississippi river)
Chicken Katsu
Chimichangas
Most foods involving barbecued slabs of cow
Fresh Corndogs
Lean Bacon Steak (not those regular steaks wrapped in bacon, I’m talking about an 8oz slab of bacon, hard to find in stores though)

People I’ll tag:
ShadowWalker
EJB
Gerhalt

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

The New Coke

I was at Fred Meyer shopping for some acetone for my truck when I saw a display for Black Cherry Vanilla Coke. I already had poor feelings toward this particular pop because it replaced Vanilla Coke which is my absolute favorite flavor of soft drink. It was also on sale so I bought a bottle just to try it. I opened it and realized that it did not have a strong scent to it, so I thought that it may have a weak taste. It tasted like slightly watered down Cherry Coke (which I've never really liked), I didn't taste any vanilla at first. A second sip and there was the vanilla, part of a sickeningly sweet aftertaste that reminded me of Pepsi Vanilla which I have never really liked. I was very disappointed with this new Coke and have no plans to buy it in the future. And with the very rare purchase of some Coke Classic here and there when it's on sale, I'm essentially boycotting the company now for removing my drink from their lineup.
Dr. Pepper came out with their Cherry Vanilla drink some time ago and apparently it was popular. I tried it once and didn't really like it. In fact I really don't like anything that has artificial cherry flavor in it. I've send several letters to Coca-Cola to express my dissatisfaction with their choice to remove Vanilla Coke from shelves but they probably don't care. In the meantime I have a stash of Vanilla Coke that will take years to deplete.

Happy Birthday Ben!

Apparently today is Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday. Nope, nothing else important going on at the moment.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Home is Home

I've now been home from the other coast for almost two weeks and I'm glad to be back. The only advantage of being on the east Coast as opposed to the West Coast is seeing TV 3 hours earlier. I really can't think of another good reason to live there. And unless my life revolved around TV, that isn't a really good reason at all. And now that I'm home again I TiVo 90% of my TV anyway so there's really no point being able to record it a few hours earlier if I'm not planning to watch it right away anyway. My biggest issues with living on the east Coast as opposed to the West Coast are as follows:
A) I think it's the first time in my life I've lived more than 2 miles from a Starbucks. Even when I was in England and Romania there was a Starbucks within 2 blocks of me.
B) I had to search long and hard to find a computer store. They're really rare as far as I could see. The only one I actually found and visited on my expedition out east was in Hattisburg, Mississippi; unfortunately it got leveled by Katrina only days after my last purchase there. What's even more unfortunate was the fact that I still needed more stuff from there.
3) No big electronics stores. There was a Best Buy about 10 miles from my apartment in Orlando, but that's the closest they have to a big electronics store. The one there was also the smallest one I'd ever seen, about half the size of the one around here. Which makes it maybe 1/10 the size of our Fry's Electronics.
D) No Tillamook dairy products. Nothing that even tasted close to their ice cream.
E) The time change was a pain to deal with. People calling me at 3 in the morning since it was only midnight at home. Not being able to call people in the morning because there was no chance that they'd actually be awake enough to answer their phone.
F) It's not my home and never will be.
g) They have hurricanes. I had to go through 2 of them, both Katrina and Wilma. They're annoying and not good for much except getting extra time off of work. I think Congress should outlaw them or something like that.

I'm currently in school again, I'm tired of it already but I need good grades in my class to get my GPA as high as possible. I plan on taking one more quarter which will consist of English, Vector Graphics, and Photoshop class, and then I'll be able to graduate with 2 separate AA degrees. Don't ask me what I'm doing after that point because I don't have any idea. I might transfer to a different school and work on a degree in Business Psychology; I might quit school and get a job that I pays enough to live on and doesn't suck too much, or I might stay at BCC for another quarter or two as an excuse not to do either of the previous options. I got plenty of time to figure it out.

In important news: Seattle didn't break its 53 year old record for most consecutive days of rain. We went 27 of the 34 days required to break the record. Now I'm a little disappointed. I don't remember ever getting close to the record and we only needed one more week. This does make up for last year when we had the driest February on record when I was walking at school in shorts and a Tshirt in 20C weather in the middle of winter. AMD released their Athlon FX60 processor last week, which is really fast and even more expensive There's a rumour flying around that Fox may bring back Futurama. I just threw my Christmas tree off of my back deck last night and it landed on the fence and is still hanging there at this moment; I might put up a picture later if I remember to take one while it's light outside. I have joined TBQelite's rank and, for various reasons, have withdrawn my membership from ShadowWalker's He-Man-Woman-Haters Club. And for the next 16 hours my basement will be relatively clean since I moved all of the random crap out of there and into my bedroom. After school tomorrow I'm probably going to take all of the junk that isn't mine and put it back in the basement so that my room will once again be semi-clean.